By R.L. Bynum

CHAPEL HILL — Carolina continues to do enough on offense to give the Tar Heels a chance to win, only for the defense to eliminate that possibility.

Unbeaten Pittsburgh feasted on that defense in a 34–24 victory Saturday. It handed the reeling Tar Heels, who failed twice on fourth down near the goal line, their third consecutive defeat.

The Panthers (5–0, 1–0 ACC) put their first win at Kenan Stadium away with an 18-play, seven-minute fourth-quarter drive for a 37-yard Ben Sauls field goal while UNC (3–3, 0–2) is left to again look for answers.

Coach Mack Brown is happy with his offense is progress even as his team is now tied for last place in the ACC with N.C. State, which lost at home to Wake Forest.

“We’ve got to be more consistent,” said Brown, bemoaning that UNC was 5 of 15 on third downs and Pitt was 9 of 16. “You can’t do that. The other thing is that we knew they were going to move the ball and score and so we wanted to be aggressive on fourth down. We were 2 of 6 on fourth down. If we had done those things better, we would have walked out of the game a lot happier.”

Pitt quarterback Eli Holstein and running back Desmond Reid were the latest to pick apart UNC’s secondary and take advantage of the Heels’ poor tackling. Holstein was 25 of 42 for 381 yards, 155 of those to Reid.

“Pitt is a really good team,” Brown said. “We knew that. They’ve always had good skill, they’ve played good defense, and they’re always aggressive. The quarterback is really good. He’s a guy that came in and made all the difference in the world.”

Kaleb Cost’s 84-yard interception return notwithstanding, it was another rough afternoon for Carolina’s pass defense, which gave up at least one play of 24 yards in each Pitt scoring drive. Pitt converted eight of nine second-half third-down plays.

Jacolby Criswell’s passing accuracy wasn’t always the best, but he sometimes showed impressive improvisational skills to generate yards when a play went awry, connecting on 24 of 45 passes for one touchdown and a 110.9 passer rating.

Wide receiver Nate McCollum had a huge game with 128 yards on 10 catches and two kickoff returns for 75 yards while Omarion Hampton ran for 110 yards, his fourth straight 100-yard game.

“There were signs today of looking like an offense that we had in the past against a really good defense that blitzes all the time,” Brown said. “A lot of the mistakes that we made against JMU and we made against Duke with protection, we fixed today. So that should help us as we look at Georgia Tech next week.”

The two drives UNC would love to have back ended with failed fourth-down attempts — a 19-play, 81-yard first-quarter possession to the Pitt 9 and an eight-play, 67-yard fourth-quarter drive that stalled at the Panthers 8.

Brown didn’t say his defense was bad, but you could certainly imply that this might be his view from his comment about why they went for it on those fourth downs rather than attempting chip-shot field goals.

“We didn’t think we were going to stop them very well just going into the game,” Brown said. “We made a conscious decision going in; we need to score touchdowns. We couldn’t be kicking field goals.”

A third straight loss isn’t what he or the team expected.

“They’re frustrated,” Brown said. They expect to win. They work from 5:30 in the morning until 10:30 at night all week to get a plan together to get in there. Then, when they lose, they’re crushed.”

Pittsburgh coach Pat Narduzzi said UNC is a good football team.

“Looking at some of the critical plays in the game, we made some big plays,” he said. “They moved the ball on us offensively. They moved it on us, but our guys toughened up on fourth down. It was just a great, all-around team win.”

Marcus Allen got beat on a 43-yard pass from Holstein to Konata Mumpfield to set up Pitt with a first-and-goal at the UNC 7 on the game’s opening drive. But the defense forced Pitt to settle for a 24-yard Ben Sauls field goal.

Cost stepped in front of Pitt wide receiver Raphael Williams Jr. to snag his second interception of the season. He made a move on Holstein on his way to returning it 84 yards for a touchdown, the first interception for a score since Storm Duck in the 2019 Military Bowl and the seventh-longest in program history. It was the longest UNC interception return since Ryan Walker 100-yarder against San Diego State in 2014.

UNC went 19 plays and 81 yards on a drive that took more than nine minutes but produced no points when a fourth-and-two pass from Criswell at the Pitt 9, intended for Bryson Nesbit, came up short.

Two five-play Pitt scoring drives then sandwiched a 34-yard Noah Burnette field goal to give Pitt a 17–10 lead. Holstein connected with Censere Lee on a 7-yard touchdown pass on the first drive after hitting Reid on a 72-yard pass play. Williams’ 30-yard TD reception capped the second drive.

UNC ended a 12-possession streak of failing to score a touchdown when Hampton capped a 73-yard, 10-play drive with a three-yard touchdown run to tie it at 17 with 42 seconds left in the first half.

A 46-yard Holstein-to-Mumpfield pass play set up a Holstein-to-Reid two-yard touchdown pass. But Criswell’s seventh touchdown pass of his career, an 11-yard play to tight end John Copenhaver, tied it with 2:07 left in the third quarter.

Holstein seized the lead back, 31–24, with a three-yard touchdown run early in the fourth quarter.

A diving McCollum catch for 48 yards set up a good scoring chance for UNC that fell short on Hampton’s fourth-and-one run at the Pitt 8.

NOTES — Carolina is back home for a noon game with Georgia Tech next Saturday (The CW). The Yellow Jackets (3–2, 1–2) hosted Duke Saturday night. … Hampton has rushed for at least 100 yards in five of UNC’s six games this season, making him and Don McCauley the only Tar Heels who have rushed for at least 100 yards in five games in multiple seasons. … Hampton scored his 30th touchdown and his 28th rushing touchdown, tying Charlie “Choo Choo” Justice and “Famous” Amos Lawrence for ninth on UNC’s all-time rushing touchdown list. … Hampton passed Justice for ninth on UNC’s all-time rushing list. Justice rushed for 2,634 yards from 1946–1949, while Hampton has 2,669 rushing yards in the last two seasons. … This was Hampton’s 14th career game with 100 or more rushing yards, tying Natrone Means for seventh on UNC’s list of games with 100 or more yards.Kaimon Rucker played, but only on third downs. … Kenan Stadium press box seats were reserved for the Panthers, Eagles, Dolphins, Bears and Browns, the Pop Tarts Bowl and the Gator Bowl. … It was the second time in three games that UNC’s opponent was coming off of an open date. … Pitt won for the first time in eight tries at Kenan Stadium, but UNC still leads a series that began in 1974 12–6. … The Panthers are 5–0 for the first time since 1991.

Pitt 34, UNC 24

ACC standings

Team	ACC	All
SMU	2–0	5–1
Virginia	2–0	4–1
No. 17 Clemson	2–0	3–1
Duke	1–0	5–0
No. 8 Miami	1–0	5–0
Pittsburgh	1–0	5–0
Syracuse	1–1	4–1
Boston College	1–1	4–2
No. 22 Louisville	1–1	3–2
Stanford	1–1	2–2
Wake Forest	1–1	2–3
Georgia Tech	1–2	3–2
Florida State	1–3	1–4
California	0–1	3–1
Virginia Tech	0–1	2–3
North Carolina	0–2	3–3
N.C. State	0–2	3–3

Friday’s result
Syracuse 44, No. 25 UNLV 41, OT
Saturday’s games
Pittsburgh 34, UNC 24
Virginia 24, Boston College 14
Wake Forest 34, N.C. State 30
SMU 24, No. 22 Louisville 27
Virginia Tech at Stanford, 3:30, ACCN
Clemson at Florida State, 7 p.m., ESPN
Duke at Georgia Tech, 8 p.m., ACC Network
Miami at California, 10:30 p.m., ESPN
Saturday’s games
Georgia Tech at UNC, noon, The CW
Clemson at Wake Forest, noon, ESPN
Stanford at Notre Dame, 3:30 p.m., NBC
California at Pittsburgh, 3:30, ESPN or ACCN
Louisville at Virginia, 3:30 p.m., ESPN or ACCN
Syracuse at N.C.State, 8 p.m., ACC Network

Month/ date	Opponent	Time/ score	TV/ record
August
29	at Minnesota	W, 19–17	1–0
September
7	vs. Charlotte	W, 38–20	2–0
14	vs. N.C. Central	W, 45–10	3–0
21	vs. James Madison	L, 70–50	3–1
28	at Duke	L, 21–20	3–2, 0–1 ACC
October
5	vs. Pittsburgh	L, 34–24	3–2, 0–2
12	vs. Georgia Tech	Noon	The CW
26	at Virginia	TBA	TBA
November
2	at Florida State	TBA	TBA
16	vs. Wake Forest	TBA	TBA
23	at Boston College	TBA	TBA
30	vs. N.C. State	TBA	TBA